CPU stuck at 100%, runs slow

I was looking everywhere for a solution to this problem - it ended up being in the setup menu upon booting.

In the setup menu (F2 when first booting up) under the 'cpu information' part, there's a cpu speed setting. On this machine I was repairing it was set to 'compatible' - I set it back to Normal and the computer now runs super fast.

I had reinstalled windows on differrent hard drives, looked for spyware and all, and this ended up being the culprit.

Hopefully ths might be of some help to anyone else who might get stuck in this situation. Good Luck-

Yes CMOS, thats what its called. I'd assume it does not default to this setting as it renders the computer almost useless but, after years of use and downloading perhaps some clever spyware/virus etc could have changed it? I dunno...